The Arboretum Festival in Ottawa is a curious little festival that inhabited Albert Island and venues across Ottawa/Gatineau Aug. 19 – 22.
The festival began with a welcome from Chief Kirby Whiteduck (Pikwàkanagàn) followed by an entrance dance by Josée Bourgeois & Traditional Drummers from the Algonquin Community of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg.
First Nations peoples sat on panels discussing topics of race, colonialism, and land claims to Albert Island.
According to the Arboretum website, the organizers consulted with “a council member at Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, we spoke with activists from the Free The Falls movement, others from the Algonquin community, had ongoing discussions with Windmill, and concerned members of our community.”
While it may not rank among the most popular music festivals in Ottawa, it definitely qualifies as one of the classiest.
The festival functions more as a celebration of artists who work to express their fondness for the musical medium in the most creative way possible.
I managed to attend the festival on Thursday, Aug. 20, in which Montreal-based experimental duo Organ Mood performed before the local piano and cello group Flying Horses, followed by a closing act by the renowned ambient artist Julianna Barwick.
The show was held in St. Alban’s Church on King Edward Avenue, specifically because of the way the building’s acoustics were designed—to maximize sound quality throughout the church.
Organ Mood put on an eccentric show. The duo played almost entirely instrumental music starting off in a way as ambient before evolving into some Dan Deacon-esque dance rhythms.
While the music performance itself definitely seemed to be all-over-the-place sonically, the way the duo interacted with, and incorporated the audience made it memorable.
For one song, they used a machine to record the sound of an audience member’s heartbeat and then used the heartbeat as the main beat to the song.
In another song, they brought a different spectator to the centre to play an instrument of their own creation.
Perhaps what stood out most for me, however, were the extremely creative and evolving visuals put on display.
There were four different projectors being synched with the samplers used to perform the music. It was an interesting auditory as well as visual experience, if a little bit scatterbrained as a whole.
Flying Horses was a different kind of show, opting for a more natural sound.
The group played some absolutely lovely contemporary classical music, which was all the more impressive considering it consisted entirely of a cello and a piano. It may not have been the most adventurous performance I’ve ever seen, but it was at times a staggeringly beautiful performance nonetheless.
Julianna Barwick was, in truth, the main reason I decided to attend the Arboretum Festival this year.
She is one of the most talented and creative artists working to this day, and her show did not disappoint.
Her sound is based on the idea of incorporating ambient soundscapes, minimalistic piano work, and her own extremely dynamic voice being sampled and looped throughout the performance.
The result is an achingly beautiful vocal and ambient soundscape that literally moved me to tears.
This is an artist in complete control of her music, both from a creative and structural perspective.
This is a bold statement but I honestly believe Julianna Barwick has the best voice of any singer alive today—it’s astounding. Her performance of the song “One Half,” of her 2013 masterpiece Nepenthe, was an unforgettable experience, and it completely floored me.
The Arboretum Festival is a brilliant celebration of the ability of sound to captivate us and move us beyond words.
